


Jealous Sea

by House of Halation (glasshibou)



Category: Shall We Date?: Obey Me!
Genre: Obsessive Behavior, Other, Possessive Behavior, darkish, reader has no stated gender, there is mention of death but it isn't described
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:48:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26369776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glasshibou/pseuds/House%20of%20Halation
Summary: The sea takes and claims things for its own all the time, which is perhaps why it has become the Avatar of Envy's domain.---For an anon on tumblr, who said:Here's a jealousy prompt with Leviathan! Not long after he and his brothers fell, he's roaming the human world as a newly-become demon (he has to leave his room sometimes to corrupt humanity with envy I'm guessing) and he comes across a human whom he used to be the Guardian Angel for, only to realize that a new angel has been assigned to them. He absolutely loses it. Nobody is allowed to have this human but him. But he's no angel anymore... I'm imagining this to be dark!
Relationships: Leviathan (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!)/Reader
Comments: 10
Kudos: 121





	Jealous Sea

Once, he had been the figurehead of a virtue, a shining beacon among his celestial brethren. Once, he’d never known what it meant to covet, to want what others possess for his own. His realm was kindness, to never want after what others have, to be happy for them instead, to support others in all endeavors without wanting to claim any of their victories for himself. 

But no longer.

He fell, with his brothers but without his sister, and had his wings stripped from him to be replaced with branching horns and a serpentine tail. Leviathan is far from the angel he once was in more ways than one. It’s liberating in a way he would never have expected while still under the yoke of the celestial realm. He no longer has to worry about the satisfaction of others, their feelings or desires and how to balance them with all things holy. For the first time in his very long life, Leviathan is able to concern himself with only his own wants and needs.

The new things he distracts himself with—the stories and the art the humans are so eager to produce—open to him new paths to walk down, brand new feelings and emotions he’d been ignorant of previously. The covetousness is new and is what he hangs his existence upon now, flouting what had been his celestial duty. The things he desires _must_ become his—and why should they not?

So he collects things. Tome upon tome of rare works, tapestries and manuscripts, sculptures and woodcuttings. Anything that distracts him even for a moment from the gnawing loss of both his sister and the surety of his previous life. For a time, it works. In a way.

Angels are not meant to want things, and Leviathan’s direct contradiction to this is grimly satisfying. It feels like continued defiance against his father, a subversion of all he used to be. If he has everything he wants, then there is no reason for the bottomless envy coursing through him now to take over. 

After a time, it isn’t quite enough. Sure, there is still joy in the acquisition of a new thing, especially if that thing is rare and thus forever out of everyone else’s reach. But he watches his brothers in their conquests, the way they bring the human to their knees with little more than a turn of their head, and he discovers that he _wants_ that. He _wants_ humans to be as envious as he is because if there is no challenge in collecting things then he does not feel as if he has won. 

So he starts to slip out for more intangible things—to drip the poison of his envy into the ears of any who will listen, corrupting humans as he goes. These corrupted lives he brings down become the new jewels in his collection. 

The brightest jewels are the ones being guarded by an angel, one of what had once been his family. Those humans are the _real_ challenges, but still little more than a game to play for Leviathan. The stakes he plays with are not particularly high; if he loses the soul, then there are always more to find and he can convince himself that he didn’t want it anyway. Those human souls guarded by angels are important in some way, Leviathan knows. _Why_ is just another mystery, even to those guardian angels; _why_ those souls shine so brightly is kept even from those acting as a shield, sometimes even long after the ward’s death. 

Sometimes they ascend and become angels themselves; other times, they act as key players for the celestial realm during their lifetime. Prophets and saints and humans blessed in one way or another are under the celestial realm’s purview and are guarded jealously. Those same humans are almost irresistible to Leviathan and his brothers, even more so than they naturally are to their new demonic brethren. They’re a reminder of what once was and the pain that brought them to where they are. 

So there’s another layer of pleasure in corrupting them, like tearing the wings from a butterfly. 

This thought occurs to Leviathan as he wanders the human realm in search of humans that might be swayed, souls that might be taken. Lucifer described finding what might have once been a saint before the Avatar of Pride interfered. Now, the man exists as a husk of himself in the Demon King’s castle, nothing more than a servant at the feet of the demon he would have railed against later in life. 

It makes him… curious. Leviathan, as an angel, had a select few humans he was meant to watch over and if he listens closely he can still feel their souls calling out to him, reverberating like whale song in the deep. Most of them have aged, are bowed and wrinkled in the two decades he’s been learning how to be a demon. Those he cares about the least are the ones who have already died and fulfilled whatever purpose the celestial realm had for them. The humans still able to be swayed are more intriguing, but most of them have been hardened already by their lives.

But there is still one charge he had as an angel that he’s almost forgotten about. His descent and your birth almost coincided and his preoccupation, he thinks, can be forgiven. It’s not as if you would have known the difference, anyway; angels and their human charges are strictly forbidden from interacting without prior authorization. Now, however, you provide an interesting diversion.

Why not find you and see what course your life has taken—if it has taken one at all. Sometimes the removal of a guardian angel forfeits the human’s life, if they’re deemed not _that_ important. Sometimes they languish. You’re alive; that much he knows. So why not find you?

After all, you’re his.

* * *

It’s laughably easy to find you, especially with the vestiges of your link acting as a tether. 

You’re not a princess. You’re not particularly devout, either, so Leviathan can’t figure out why you’re special enough to require a guardian angel. But then realization dawns on him like the first rays of sunlight over the calm ocean. Of course you’re special. You’re _his._

For a time, he just… watches. Takes in the way the moonlight illuminates your countenance during the night and how the sun catches in your hair during the daylight hours. Watches as you guide the snakes in your garden away to safety. You are kind, he determines. Kind even to the creatures that others shun. A good match, then, for the guardian of the virtue of kindness. 

It inspires a new envy within him, one that burrows deep and lays down a root. This envy grows with a ferocious speed, choking out almost every other thought. The idea that another being—and an angel at that—is allowed to be near you, to watch over you gnaws at him. And the idea that the angel is _yours_ , is meant to protect _you_ twists quickly, transforming into something new. 

It becomes the idea of possession.

The angel has taken something of Leviathan’s and Leviathan does not suffer loss easily. Before too much time has passed and he sees your face even when he closes his eyes, Leviathan decides that he has to have you. To own you. To wrest you away from the control and confinement that the celestial realm and the angel hovering around you offer. 

“Phanuel,” Leviathan hisses, snakelike tongue flicking at the end of the angel’s name. The demon stands not far away from the door to your home, in the garden that you tend to so meticulously. The angel rests on the roof, his wings ruffled by the nighttime breeze. 

“Leviathan,” Phanuel replies with an incline of his head. He’s difficult to look at for the demon, holy light spilling from his wings and the circlet around his head burnished gold, displaying his rank. Leviathan refuses to look away from the being that had once been his brother, and any pain he feels at the meeting he buries deep within himself. 

“Give me the human,” Leviathan orders, folding his arms across his chest. Phanuel looks down at him with unbearable pity that makes Leviathan want to rip the wings from his back. _You poor thing,_ Leviathan imagines the angel’s thoughts. _Poor, broken, worthless once-angel._

“They are my charge,” Phanuel refuses with a gentle shake of his head. “I cannot allow them to be swayed or taken from my watch.”

It’s the answer that Leviathan was expecting, but not the one he wanted to hear. Still, it further sours his mood all the same, the reminder that the one thing he _wants_ so badly is the one thing an entire realm conspires to keep from him. It just _isn't fair._

You were once his, after all, his to look over and to shepherd through the dangers of human life. You could still be, if the angel could be gotten rid of. Deep within him, the first inklings of a plan start to develop. Malformed and little more than wisps of ideas, but there all the same.

"I could take care of them," Leviathan wheedles, and Phanuel's expression changes for the briefest of moments. Human eyes wouldn't have caught it, but Leviathan is no human; he witnesses how the angel's lips curl in something skin to disgust. Rage crashes through him like a rogue wave.

"The human is no concern of a demon." That's what does it—the reminder that Leviathan is no longer an angel, that the brother he might once have jested with now views him as lesser, as corrupted, as disgusting. Not that he wishes to return to the celestial realm; that wound is still too deep and too fresh to be wished away so easily. He found freedom in his fall and he has no plans of relinquishing it.

Leviathan knows how angels behave, all of the little ways to manipulate them into actions that they might not normally take. Phanuel has been tasked with the safety of the human slumbering within, and when such a clear danger presents itself so readily, of course the angel has to give chase. Leviathan leverages that knowledge to his advantage when he leads Phanuel to the ocean, not too far away from your house. The ocean breeze is cool, subdued, almost, as if it knows exactly what is about to take place. 

Once, he’d been a powerful angel. One of the virtues, in fact, ordained by the celestial king himself. Power, in one form or another, is no stranger to Leviathan; after he fell, he found himself third most powerful among his brothers, ranked by the demon king himself. Although pride is not his new domain, Leviathan feels no small amount of it whenever he is reminded of the new titles he’s been collecting. A lord of hell. Grand Admiral of Hell’s Navy. Commander of all living things within the oceans of both hell and the human world. The third to be reborn amongst his brothers. And now, soon, the possessor of your mortal soul.

No paltry angel is going to stand in the way of that. 

* * *

You pay little mind to the way some of the tide washes up red in the morning. Most of it is gone by the time you make it down to the beach anyway, and so the only thing left of the angel there is a pinkish tinge to the sand and a few scattered feathers. But birds are always losing feathers and you know that sometimes the ocean creatures can be ruthless, so you ignore both of the little warnings on the beach. 

No, your goal this time is the seaglass that you hope has washed up after the freak storm last night. It sounded to you like the heavens opened up and all of the angels came down to wage war on all of the evil things in the world, and you sat up in the middle of the night, alone in your bed, and felt for some reason that a part of your heart had just been ripped from your chest. You wave it off as the last vestiges of a nightmare that you can’t quite remember, and put to rest the anxiety that comes with it. 

You’ve lost nothing but a few moments of sleep, but you can’t shake the feeling that you’re exposed, somehow, suddenly lacking some sort of invisible security. You shake your head and wrap your shawl closer to you, eyeing the top of the lighthouse up on the cliffs. The fire went all night long, strong and steady even through the gale you heard tearing at the roof of your little house. When you checked it as soon as dawn broke, it looked like there hadn’t been a storm at all. 

No matter. You’re only a temporary lighthouse keeper anyway, just there to tend to the fire and ensure it remains stoked while the _real_ keeper is away tending to family matters. Ships don’t come up this way so late in the year normally, so it isn’t particularly pressing, either. Which is why you suppose they gave the job to you; there’s not much to mess up. 

You’re not incapable of things, and you’re not bewitched like some of the villagers whisper. Your luck is just… _strange._ A stroke of bad luck—like, say, falling from the tallest branch from the oldest tree in the village square while trying to rescue a kitten—is just as quickly overshadowed by good luck—the cart full of wool that broke your fall, for example. Chaos swirls around you like a whirlpool, but for being at the epicenter of it you often emerge from it relatively unscathed. Sometimes you’ve wondered if there’s something looking out for you, but no matter how hard you’ve prayed for your angel to show itself, nothing has ever appeared. Perhaps luck is just that, and you ought to watch your step better. 

Unseen to you as you lean over tide pools and toe though patches of wet sand you think might be hiding your coveted seaglass, there is _already_ something watching every step you make. Sunset gold and deep ocean blue eyes watch as you wander down the beach, marking your progress as you move away from where your guardian angel met his demise. You don’t need that angel anymore, your watcher thinks. Not when you have _him._

Leviathan follows behind you unseen; neither he nor his brothers have lost their ability to go unobserved by mortals, though if you turned to look behind you there is the chance that you might see footprints in the sand following behind your own. For the moment, just waiting and watching is enough for the demon shadowing your movements. Without Phanuel’s interference he has all the time in the world to figure out how to approach you, if he wants to at all; the chance that the celestial realm might send another angel hasn’t occurred to him just yet in the glow from his victory. 

You don’t notice the faint footprints following you on the beach, but you _do_ notice the way your door hands open for a moment longer than it should when you return to the lighthouse, and the way the old wooden chair in the corner creaks ever so slightly, the way it does when weight is set upon it. Except there’s nothing there—at least, nothing _should be_ there. Thoughts of the ghost the keeper tried to scare you with plague you as you set about your day and notice all of the tiny little things that are amiss. 

The light bends oddly as the sun starts to set, sunbeams streaming in through the window shimmering midair. The stew that you have bubbling over your fire doesn’t spill over when it comes to a boil, like someone stirred it while your back was turned. The seaglass you found on the beach is stacked into tiny little pyramids on the kitchen table, which you certainly didn’t do.Your hairbrush definitely is not where you last left it when you go looking for it that evening. 

“Spirit?” You call out into the empty living quarters, feeling like a fool. “Spirit, if you are there, would you…”

Leviathan breathes shallowly as he watches you look around the two rooms you’d been living in, certain that he’s been caught out and you’ve somehow managed to see him this whole time. But your gaze glides right over him, wide, nervous eyes coming to a rest by the doorway—exactly where he isn’t. 

You lick your lips and then shake your head, cursing your idle thoughts. There are no spirits. You’ve lived here for weeks with nothing supernatural at all to show for it. Surely, it’s just the solitude that’s been getting to you, making you jittery and causing you to jump at shadows. Because that’s all there is, you decide as you step out of the clothes you’ve worn all day. Just shadows, and nothing more.

At first, Leviathan looks away, face burning crimson as you shed your day clothes and go about washing yourself for the night. No doubt your _false_ guardian hadn’t watched you during your daily ablutions—and he ignores the faint voice in his head that reminds him that _he_ wouldn’t have, either, had he still been an angel. 

But there is the crux of the current situation; he is not an angel and so he is not bound by things that an angel should or would do. So he watches the way the water droplets trail down the curve of your back, turned molten gold by the candlelight. It suits you, Leviathan thinks, to be draped in the same colors of his eyes. He watches as you blow out your candle and bathe you both in darkness, the scent of the smoke mixing with the tallow. 

He’s not a coward, but he doesn’t think he’s brave enough just yet to crawl into bed beside you, to stroke his hands across your skin or through your hair. Not yet, anyway. Not before he has a plan in place that will see you at his side for as long as your mortal lifespan will allow. 

You don’t notice the golden eyes that watch you as you settle into bed for the night, and how could you? He doesn’t want for you to see him, not yet, anyway; he might be new to being a demon, but he still knows how you’re likely to view him. Normally, the opinions of one lowly human wouldn’t bother him at all… but in this circumstance, it’s different. _You’re_ different. 

The plan, he decides as the night continues into a new day, goes like this: he will be your guardian angel, again. Just long enough for you to realize that you _need_ him as much as he _wants_ you. The celestial realm will not interfere, and because you’ve already called out to the spirit in the lighthouse, he knows that you can be convinced. But because he is not an actual angel anymore, there’s no need for him to hide himself the way Phanuel was. 

No, Leviathan knows that he can choose to reveal himself whenever the best opportunity presents itself. He just… isn’t sure what that opportunity might look like. His tail—a replacement, of sorts, for his wings—flicks in irritation down by his feet. Angels don’t have tails. They don’t have horns, either, he thinks as his fingertips skim over the hard branches reaching up from his skull now. The second he shows himself to you, you’ll know he isn’t an angel. It’s enough to make him want to throttle the you that would see through his lies. 

But, _no,_ that isn’t in his plan at _all._ Gilgamesh and Enkidu might have fought, but they didn’t _kill each other_ out of fits of jealousy. And if you die, then he has lost something precious. You cannot be allowed to lie, least of all by his hand. 

These are the thoughts that keep him occupied all through the night, and he almost misses you leave the lighthouse. You climb upwards to check the fire, keeping to your new morning routine. There is enough fuel to last for quite a while, but checking could never hurt. The whole time, you can’t shake the feeling of eyes on your back, of every movement being tracked. 

“I am just checking the flame, spirit.” However certain you were last night that no spirits reside within the lighthouse, that certainty melted away with the moonlight. Odd, that; you would have thought that the dark of the night would have brought more fear than the sun. The spirit doesn’t reply. You weren't expecting it to, anyway, but the feeling of being watched doesn’t go away. 

* * *

That feeling continues for days and days until you're almost convinced you need to find a priest to free you of the hidden watchful eyes. Instead, you go about your business as normal—though you tend to look over your shoulder more often, now. 

Every now and then, your diligence is rewarded with little glimpses of… Something. Possibly multiple somethings, if you’re being honest with yourself, but you can’t quite make out what it is. They look like little blurs of black air hovering at the corners of your vision, but you think you’ve seen tiny little orangish horns on the slower ones. For a moment, you think that, impossibly, there are tiny little dying embers floating around the lighthouse. It’s impossible, of course, but you start to look harder for them in an effort to actually catch one. You leave out little slices of bread, and then when that doesn’t work, you leave out scraps of meat like it’s a cat you’re trying to catch. But food doesn’t entice the little apparitions, so you change tactics and start leaving out other things. Sea glass and shells and interestingly-shaped pieces of driftwood you’ve picked up in your wanderings. Just pretty little things that caught your attention and, you hope, catch the fancy of whatever it is you’re sharing your house with now. 

“This is for you,” you call out into what looks like empty air before you leave for market. You’ve hung a little suncatcher you made from twine and flatter pieces of glass from the beach on the door. It’s pretty and sends muted little rainbows around the room when the sun hits it. You don’t need it, but you hope that the spirits take an interest in it. Hopefully when you get back to the tiny little cottage, it will be gone: proof that the thing living with you actually exists and you aren’t losing your grip on your sanity. 

It isn’t. You search everywhere for it, hoping that it hasn’t just fallen to the floor or somehow slipped underneath the floorboards. The sun catcher is nowhere to be seen, and that evening you go to bed with a wide smile on your face. There _is_ something in the house, and you think it liked your gift.

“Can you speak with me, spirit?” Your voice is so soft and gentle that Leviathan almost shows himself then and there. Surely, you wouldn’t turn him away, not after you’ve left him so many little gifts and speak so sweetly. He remains in the shadows for now, but perhaps…

“I can talk,” he says, letting the magic fall from his voice so you are able to hear him. He doesn’t miss the way you perk up and squint into the dark as if you might actually be able to see him. Your eyes glide right over him yet again, and he can’t tell if he’s proud of his abilities or… irritated at the game he’s playing. You should be looking right at him. Even with the interference of his magic, the bond you share should lead you directly to him. 

“I knew you were real,” you breathe out. “I have to confess: I thought of bringing the church here, but—”

“No!” As soon as it’s out of his mouth, Leviathan knows that he’s made a mistake. His protest came far too quickly, was far too forceful, and he doesn’t miss the nervous expression that flits over your face. And he was loud enough that you’re looking almost directly at him, able to track the sound down. “I mean…”

His tail coils and uncoils at his feet in irritation.

“There are… Dangerous things around here,” he says, trying to infuse his voice with the confidence he hears so often from his brothers. “If they know that you know, then it might… become more dangerous. I’m a… guardian angel. You’re mine.”

He watches as you stiffen and then relax at his words, nodding slowly as if you understand everything he’s saying. You don’t, of course; you can’t think of a reason why you would have a guardian angel, and you voice that concern. Leviathan waves it away, and you suppose that you will have to take his word on it.

“These dangerous things, are they what I’ve been seeing out of the corner of my eye?” You keep your voice hushed, worried that the little beasts might be listening in. They are, of course; they follow their lord everywhere he goes, but you don’t need to know that. For now, they make a convenient scapegoat. 

“When I am here, they’re gone,” Leviathan says, shooing one of the little demons away. It grumbles, but you can’t hear it. 

“Oh,” you say, still squinting into the dark. Your spirit has lowered his voice so you can’t tell where he is anymore. Except, no, he’s not a spirit—he’s a guardian angel. _Your_ guardian angel, and the thought fills you with warmth. “Well, then… Can you stay?” You hold out a hand to him to take, but he doesn’t. 

“I can stay,” he says, and his voice sounds like he’s awestruck. It almost makes you laugh—that _he’s_ awestruck but you’re the one with an angel in your bedroom. You offer to make up a pallet for him and then, remembering yourself, offer him the bed while you take the pallet. While he seems mollified by the offer, he takes neither; angels don’t need to sleep like humans do, apparently. 

So you spend the night tossing and turning, trying and failing to sleep while the angel waits nearby. You know he’s nearby because the tiny little demons (you can’t think of anything else to call them) don’t bother you. When morning comes and you have to drag yourself out of bed, you do so with the full knowledge that you have a guest. 

“Do you… eat? I can make us breakfast,” you say, but the angel turns you down, and you decide it’s best to just get on with your day as you normally would. But now you have another person to speak with, and you take full advantage of your angel’s presence. Your chatter is almost mindless, and you find that if you hit upon the right topic, he’s surprisingly verbose. He likes stories of all kinds, you hear, but especially the ones with great heroes and epic quests. He collects rare things—the more difficult to obtain, the better—and you’re so enchanted that you don’t even stop to ponder the strangeness of an angel hoarding material possessions. 

Your suncatcher has been added to the collection, the knowledge of which only makes you smile widely at where you think your invisible angel is standing. 

You tell him things about yourself in between his soliloquies Yes, you have a family—who doesn’t?—and no, you’re neither married nor engaged to be. His responses sound oddly… relieved before he covers them up and says it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. For a moment you’re at a loss for how to respond, but then you remember. He’s your guardian angel. Of course none of that would matter when it comes to fulfilling his duties. Besides, he’s probably just being polite by asking, anyway.

As the days pass, you realize just how exhausting it’s growing to call him _the angel_ , and then you ask, he tells you to call him Leviathan. Or Levi, for short. It’s something you gladly take him up on because his full name is something of a mouthful, and it’s hard to call out when you find an interesting piece of driftwood or find a piece of glass the same shade of green he’s described a hero’s eyes as. 

Things are _good._ You feel safe.

Except for when you don’t.

It starts small, just as you’ve managed to put away the thoughts of the tiny demons he promised to shield you from. He doesn’t like you talking about things that don’t involve him, in some way. It’s _almost_ as if he’s jealous of all of the moments you’ve had before and doesn’t want to be forced to remember that a time existed when you didn’t know of him. You try to keep those stories to a minimum, but… it’s hard. And sometimes you slip up.

You can’t tell he’s angry with any definitiveness, but he certainly sounds put out when he tries to change the subject. And sometimes he snaps a little at you when you forget, or try to hold back a particularly pretty shell for yourself, or want to keep a personal story private. It isn't rage, but it’s closer to anger then you ever expected to hear from a celestial being. It can’t be jealousy either, you tell yourself, because angels simply don’t feel that.

Right?

Things start to get stranger the first time he waves off your concerns about the tiny demons. They’ve started showing up again, floating around the ceiling as you go about your day. You point them out to him, voice heavy with fear, and… He doesn’t care. Leviathan just shrugs and at first tells you that they’re harmless before he remembers himself. 

And then, the strangest thing of all: he touched you. It’s not something you can _see,_ of course, because he still stubbornly remains hidden from view. But the pressure on your shoulder as you try to leave the house for the day is unmistakable, and you can’t shake him off. Even when you try. 

“There’s danger out there…” He pauses like there’s something else he wants to say, but nothing else is forthcoming. 

“I have to check the flames,” you tell him as if it’s a novel concept. “And I have errands to run—I can’t just stay inside all day.” He doesn’t seem fond of the outdoors, you’ve noticed. More and more he’s been trying to keep you to the shadows, closer to the lighthouse and the living quarters. You never thought he’d ever try to keep you from leaving them entirely.

“The flames are fine,” he responds. “You can’t leave. I won’t let you. You’re mine.”

 _...To protect?_ You want to clarify, but his words have shocked you into silence. What you don’t know and he would never tell you is that the heavenly host is out and searching for their lost lamb and fallen comrade. Phanuel’s corpse won’t be difficult to find with an aerial view, which the angels will have. Leviathan tossed it from the cliffs and that is here it remains, stuck on one of the rocky outcroppings. You haven’t seen it because he’s been shepherding you away from it the whole time. 

“Levi, I have chores that I have to do—”

“I said you’re _staying here,_ ” Leviathan hisses, and in his rage and fear—fear that you're not listening to him, rage that you might be taken away—the spell he’s been using to remain invisible falters. It falls from him like an old cloak and for the first time you can _see._

He is no angel.

The forking horns sprouting from his head make that clear enough, as does the snakelike tail reaching out to wrap around your ankle. He’s no angel at all.

“What _are_ you?”

Leviathan realizes, then, what has just happened. The truth is out, and by the dawning look of horror on your face you know _exactly_ what he is. You’re out the door before he can grab you, racing away as fast as you can towards the cliffs. He doesn’t seem to like them, for whatever reason, and you don’t spare much thought to what that reason might be—only that he might not think to look for you there. 

Behind you, you can hear him shout out your name. There’s some distance, at least, and you dare to peek behind you as you make it to the tallest cliff. He’s behind you, visible as anything else, and that thought fills you with even more sticky cold fear. If he’s not trying to hide himself, then you know whatever game he’s been playing with you is over. 

You try to breathe deep to calm yourself. There is still a way out, after all; if a demon was interested in you, then perhaps you really _did_ have a guardian angel out there. Somewhere. You just needed to give them time to show up, to rescue you from the demon you’ve just angered. 

Frantic, you look around you, hoping for feathered wings and sun-bright halos. Instead, you find approaching storm clouds out on the horizon, choppy waves in the sea, and...

And there, down on the jagged edges of the cliff face: huge white wings, half stripped of their feathers; a broken, battered body; and, in short, what remains of an angel. You’re _certain_ it’s an angel. You’re even more certain it’s your guardian angel. The real one.

Tears, hot and borne of terror, slip down your face. 

“I told you,” Leviathan says, sounding too close and mournful in your ear. “Not to leave me.”

You know, as you feel his tail wrap around your waist, that he's been right the whole time. You are his. 


End file.
